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Rio de Janeiro, Brazil – On Wednesday morning, the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) kicked off in Brazil.

The three-day conference brings together around 50,000 persons: heads of states and delegates, business leaders and the private sector, the scientific community, NGOs, journalists, environmentalists, activists, children and youth, farmers, indigenous peoples, local authorities, women, and trade unions, as they seek to reduce poverty, address world hunger, advance social inequity and prevent climate change.

The original 1992 Earth Summit (also held in Rio, hence Rio+20) sought to put the issue of sustainable development at the forefront of the United Nations' work.

The 20-year anniversary summit takes place amidst two of the greatest challenges facing the international community: the biggest economic downturn in modern history and an environmental tipping point, climate change.

Achim Steiner, head of the United Nations Environment Programme, stated in a press conference that "if current patterns of production and consumption of natural resources prevail, then governments will preside over unprecedented levels of damage and degradation."

U.S. President Barack Obama, Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel, and U.K.'s Prime Minister Cameron will not be in attendance.

What are the Rio+20's Goals?

Rio+20 seeks to establish an institutional framework for sustainable development. While not legally binding, the document that emerges from Rio+20 will serve as a roadmap for sustainable development.

Delegates approved a draft of the document entitled "The Future We Want,” late Tuesday evening, which will be presented to heads of state to be revised and ratified by the summit's end on Friday.

Measuring Sustainable Development

Yet how does one measure sustainable development? What marks development? Is it best gauged by economic growth? Or by other factors? And what makes it sustainable?

In Rio, a demand has been put forward to analyze economies not solely on the basis of gross domestic product (GDP).

Earlier this year, in its report Resilient People, Resilient Planet: A Future Worth Choosing , UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon’s High-Level Global Sustainability Panel concluded that “the international community should measure development beyond GDP and develop a new sustainable development index or set of indicators.”

The Stiglitz-Sen-Fitoussi Commission — based on the work of Nobel Prize laureates in Economics Joseph Stiglitz and Amartya Sen, as well as of French economist Jean-Paul Fitoussi — has also called for a broad range of social indicators to complement GDP figures.

At a press conference Wednesday, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) responded with a proposal for a "Sustainable Human Development Index."

It draws on the Human Development Index (HDI), created by the Pakistani economist Mahbub ul Haq and continued by Sen, which measures life expectancy, health, literacy, education and standard of living.

Thus, while the writing is on the wall with regard to the urgency of climate change, the need for an alternative economic model, one that takes into account the health of both planet and people, is also becoming increasingly clear.

Additionally, NGOs lambasted the draft text for its failure to mention nuclear energy, particularly in light of the Fukushima disaster, and to demand an end to fossil fuel subsidies.

"Just to be clear," they concluded, "NGOs at Rio do not endorse this document."

People's Summit

Prior to the Rio+20, a People's Summit kicked off in Rio on June 15, 2012. This alternative conference brought together people from movements worldwide, seeking to address environmental degradation and social inequity, to reject green speculation and fossil fuel subsidies.

Representatives from over 500 indigenous communities worldwide gathered on Tuesday evening and signed a declaration presented to the opening plenary this morning. Addressing the Rio+20, a representative from the group demanded a focus on sustainable development and on a recognition of their legal rights, and argued against extractive industries.

On Sunday afternoon, global organizations Avaaz and 350.org protested fossil fuel subsidies by unfurling a trillion dollar bill on the iconic Copacabana beach, calling on world leaders at the Rio+20 Summit to end the nearly $1 trillion dollars they hand out in fossil fuel subsidies each year.

Not all are convinced that the Rio+20 negotiations will prove successful. Kumi Naidoo, Executive Director of Greenpeace International, criticized the negotiations.

“Rio+20 has turned into an epic failure,” warned Naidoo. “It has failed on equity, failed on ecology and failed on economy.”

Tina Gerhardt is an independent journalist and academic who covers international climate negotiations, domestic energy policy and related direct actions. Her work has appeared in Alternet, Grist, The Progressive, The Nation and the Wall Street Journal. She has appeared on the Laura Flanders’ Show on GRIT TV; Pacifica radio stations KPFA’s Against the Grain and WBAI’s Wake Up Call, as well as the National Radio Project.

By Wendell Berry

Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front

Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.
And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.
When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.
So, friends, every day do something
that won’t compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.
Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millennium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.
Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.
Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.
Listen to carrion—put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.
Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?
Go with your love to the fields.
Lie easy in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.
As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn’t go. Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.

Wendell Berry is a poet, farmer, and environmentalist in Kentucky. This poem, first published in 1973, is reprinted by permission of the author and appears in his “New Collected Poems” (Counterpoint).